


On the Verge of the End Is the Beginning

by truelyesoteric



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bleak, Future Fic, M/M, Magic, Past Character Death, Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truelyesoteric/pseuds/truelyesoteric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One little fact changed the world. Peter Hale found Stiles in the woods. He became the wolf and the hunters took what was his. He made the world burn for his pain. That is when he became the wolf, The Alpha. The wolves and hunters looted the world until there was nothing left to save. The only way to go forward is to go back.</p>
<p>(A prequel to the show that takes place in the future)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Verge of the End Is the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [World On Fire/On the Verge of the End Is the Beginning (Teen Wolf) - Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146987) by [cybel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybel/pseuds/cybel). 



> Thanks to Cybel that made art that made me want to write THIS story, thanks to the mods that let me jump in even though I didn't sign up.
> 
> Thanks to waterofthemoon for the day turn around beta. Even though I promised her that I would lay off her betaing for me (for a little bit)

 

Stiles ran.

He didn’t wear his human skin much; he didn’t think with his human mind often. He had left it behind with inhuman screams and the smell of burnt hair. 

He was the wolf. Nothing else mattered anymore. 

He wasn’t human.

That wasn’t how the world worked anymore; that wasn’t how his world worked any more.

Stiles could hear them coming. In his Alpha form, he was strong, stronger than any other. He held the highest position, among all wolves, among all packs, among every creature in this world. He had gotten there with his claws and fangs and cunning. He learned that those were listened to better than words.

This was night. Day was when the sky was on fire. The sun burned through the lands, making outside unbearable. Night was for the creatures. There were only two kinds that mattered anymore. There were wolves, and there were hunters. Both had once been human, but neither much resembled it now. It had only been like this for just shy of two decades, but it really seemed like it had been like this forever.

Everybody was so embroiled in it that a time before seemed like a myth.

Stiles had been running for years upon years, but in this chase, he couldn’t evade his stalkers. He felt it; he felt the certainty that this was his time. For all his running, all his fighting, he felt that he wasn’t going to get out of this one. 

It was the first time he had felt fear since he had woken up with a gash in his side that was beginning to heal before his eyes. He had been in high school. That was the day his life had changed. That was the day the world began to progress towards this. That day was long ago.

He growled and ran faster. He didn’t think like that. He didn’t think about that. That was in a locked box, and he wouldn’t open it.

Then he smelled them before he saw them. 

The smells were something of a long ago past, of when he was more human, was any human at all. 

It was what he had smelled like when he…

He didn’t think like that. Not anymore. 

But he saw it anyway., His memory flashed, and he relived his Alpha consumed by flames. 

For a split second, he remembered.

Derek.

Stiles had already slowed, nausea building in his gut. He saw the figures, and stopped running.

Everything on his heels could wait.

They were unarmed, they were human, and Stiles knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were waiting for him.

Stiles stopped, breathing hard.

“Son.”

Stiles heard the word and wanted to tear both of their throats out, but his hesitation on what was in front of him gave those behind him enough time. Stiles felt the jolts of electricity, felt himself change back to human form. There was a needle jammed into his neck.

He fought and snarled, sounding remarkably weak in his human form. The last thought in his mind was that this wasn’t how it usually happened. This wasn’t what happened to wolves, especially Alphas.

They were torn apart, burned, shot, beheaded.

Alphas didn’t die. They were decimated.

Stiles felt like he was going to die how he lived—just not good enough.

**

He came around with his arms suspended from the ceiling, so long ago that they had fallen asleep. He was in human form and suspected that he wasn’t going to be able to shift. He opened his eyes, but a blindfold was tied tight around his head.

Stiles breathed in. He tried to find the Alpha, to find that thing where he could set himself free, but nothing was there, there was nothing he held to. He was drugged, and he couldn’t find the wolf. He had long forgotten how to be human, he didn’t know how to be like this.

He howled. He had a pack of hundreds; somebody had to hear him.

“You’re underground, in a bunker. They can’t hear you.”

He didn’t stop howling. Even in his human form, he knew it still sounded imposing, even though to his ears, it was pathetic.

“You can howl, or you can listen.”

He knew that voice. He twisted his head, trying to dislodge the blindfold. That voice reminded him of the past, and that wasn’t a pleasant thing.

That voice was there when it happened. That voice was there when his Alpha, his heart, was flayed.

Stiles snarled and growled and chomped and eventually managed to dislodge the blindfold.

He blinked into the torchlight. It had been decades, and his brain hadn’t functioned at person level for most of that time. They were all human, and it took him a few minutes to process their faces.

At the back of the room was the man from the forest. He had a nasty looking stun gun in his hands. He was old and familiar, but he smelled like family.

Dad.

In front of him was a dark-haired man, far too many lines on his face, hardly the young man he had known.

Scott.

“He’s not even human anymore,” a voice said scornfully.

He seethed and showed her his teeth. 

Allison.

“Stiles,” Scott said, stepping forward in the torchlight.

Stiles whipped around to him.

“Alpha,” he growled. Nobody called him Stiles anymore. He was the Alpha of Alphas. It was by his muzzle that the world had learned of them, by his claws that they had bowed at his feet.

He had been an Alpha since he was twenty-two, and soon after that, he had been the Alpha. The only people left alive who remembered his name were in this room.

Allison loaded the crossbow. Scott turned towards her, holding up a hand, but he didn’t move between the path of the arrow and Stiles. 

“You’re Stiles Stilinski,” his father said, coming forward. “You learned to walk because you wanted my attention, your first word was ‘mine,’ and after your mother died, you wore sarcasm like a second skin. You are my son.”

Stiles stilled. There were feelings in between the memories this man was offering. There were tears about his mother and laughter with his father and friends. 

He felt the growl in his chest. He couldn’t be that to them anymore. They couldn’t be that to him, either. There was too much blood, too much between then and now.

Because the moment he let it in, he would see those eyes. Dark eyebrows and, on rare occasions, a white smile. Stiles had once held with pride that he had seen that smile more than anyone else. That perfect mouth had died yelling.

Fire will do that to anyone, even an Alpha.

Stiles seethed. He had run from this feeling for years. The slow crack of his heart had brought darkness and fire to the world. Neither side had meant for the past to be how it was, but they were all guilty of bringing it here.

Then she stepped forward. She was still small with long red hair, and she still looked impeccable, end of the world or not. She wore white. It was crisp and clean. Stiles remembered clean. He didn’t know how she was able to be that here.

Stiles stilled.

She didn’t show a bit of fear as she stepped forward. 

He almost quirked his mouth a little at her.

Lydia.

She stepped up to him and reached out to his chest. He should have torn apart anything in reach of his teeth, but he didn’t. Stiles stilled and closed his eyes. 

He hadn’t been touched in kindness in decades. He was more than wary; it was how he survived. He hadn’t had a human touch him in years—they all seemed to want to kill him.

But she would never be the one to kill him. He knew that as much as he could still taste every life he had taken. 

He opened his eyes. She was looking up at him. Her eyes were a little too bright as she touched his chest. 

She wasn’t all human. She was impervious to the bite. She could see death, she could sense it, and she could cause it. He couldn’t turn her, and he wouldn’t kill her. She had been the one to set him free on the world. He owed her.

He looked at her and remembered something more than screams of the past. He remembered her loyalty. He would have been dead if it wasn't for her, either by the fires that had consumed his Alpha or by the hunters that set the fires. She had pulled him away from both of those. She had kept him safe until he had gone out and let the world feel his anger.

“Lydia,” Allison said in warning, her trigger finger curling.

Scott pulled the crossbow away from Allison. Scott’s eyes were tired, but they looked at Stiles like he had the answers.

He remembered friends and the safety he had felt there. Once upon a time, when he believed in humans, these were the ones that let in.

Lydia ignored Allison and began to move her fingers. She brushed away grime on Stiles’s naked torso. He didn’t flinch even when she scratched his chest. He knew what she was doing, if not why. He had left motivations with his humanity.

Finally she found it, freed it—the triskelion over his heart.

Lydia looked up at Stiles. 

“He put that there,” she said. “With spells and potions and his own blood, he put that mark on you. He claimed you, above all others, for no one else, like no one else before or after.”

Stiles' tongue was heavy in his mouth. The mark on his chest was his. The memories that she was bringing up, he didn’t want those here. He didn’t want to be reminded. 

“You’re all here,” said a luminous figure. She was translucent, and she seem to glide more than move.

Stiles looked at her. He had seen her, but he couldn’t remember where. She wasn’t one of his memories, but something about her called to him and made him still.

“Laura Hale,” Lydia supplied, still touching the mark on his chest.

The woman stepped forward. Stiles looked up at her from between ropey pieces of hair. He remembered now. He had only seen her cut in two. He looked at her face, and it was just like the one he had lost. He felt all the emotion that he had long pushed away. He felt his heart break all over again.

She looked every inch like her brother. Stiles hadn’t remembered at first because he never brought her brother’s face into his mind. He couldn’t.

Laura stepped forward, luminescent in this dirty place. She walked towards him without fear. She had no need to be; she didn’t smell, and she wasn’t corporeal, but she still felt like Laura Hale.

When she was near enough, he bowed his head. He was of her lineage. Even a great Alpha such as him would bow in the presence of their predecessors.

A ghostly hand went to touch his cheek. “Your rage burned the world.”

The voice was raspy and feather light. He looked up at her, water gathering in his eyes.

“It would have happened anyway,” the Sheriff said from the back of the cavern.

Allison tilted her head and looked at Stiles. “Would it have?”

Stiles looked up and growled.

“Stiles wasn’t responsible for the end of the world, Allison,” Scott said, fiercely loyal to the end, even when everything that he had seen in the last couple of years betrayed that trust.

There was a derisive snort behind him.

“Shut up, Allison,” Scott said tiredly.

Laura brushed a piece of hair from Stiles’s ear. 

“Scott is right,” Lydia said, her finger pressing into Stiles’s chest. “It all happened in a way to bring him here. He was bitten, and he refused one Alpha and mated another. When his mate was taken by hunters and destroyed, he became an Alpha and showed the wolf to the world. The face of the Hunter came after him, and they destroyed everything to try to get to him, and the world burned. Those are the facts.”

“He is the one who loved my brother,” Laura said quietly.

Lydia inhaled. “That also is a fact.”

Laura raised an eyebrow and said in no uncertain terms, “You cannot change that fact.”

“Of course,” Lydia said. “I can’t change the hearts of men.”

“But you can change the other facts?” Allison asked.

“I can change one,” Lydia said certainly.

“Which one?” Laura said through skeptical eyes.

“Any other one,” Lydia informed her.

“Are we sure?” Scott asked.

“Do you want to live in this world?” Allison said rolling her eyes.

“I can’t imagine that anything could be worse,” Laura said, touching Stiles’s cheek. “I don’t know how any of you are still doing it.”

“Can we go back to before we couldn’t live outside during the day?” the Sheriff asked.

“Can we go back to before I found my soul mate?” Allison said, glaring at Scott. Scott flipped her off halfheartedly.

“Can I not be dead?” Laura asked.

“No,” Lydia said, her eyes taking on a white glow. “That must be.”

“Figured,” Laura said, not taking her eyes from Stiles.

“We can go back to just after you die,” Lydia said softly. “That is where it begins.”

Lydia’s hand was on Stiles’s chest, so she felt it before she heard it.

“Derek.”

The word was raw, a voice that wasn’t used. He pulled at his chains, speaking to Lydia.

“Derek.”

She nodded and understood. Her fingers tapped on his chest.

She smiled sadly at him and whispered. “Alive.”

In that second, he felt as if he would give anything without question if she could promise that.

“I swear,” Lydia told him.

The Sheriff cleared his throat.

“You have us,” Scott said. “Allison is your hunter, Stiles is your wolf, Laura is your Spirit of Hale. Can you do it?”

“I think of myself as a Werespirit,” Laura retorted. “I still don’t know why you didn’t bring Derek back.”

Stiles eyes closed against the images in his head. The rest of the room fell silent.

Lydia finally removed her hand from Stiles's chest and let him have that moment alone. A touch, no matter the kindness, would not be welcomed. Lydia couldn’t be turned, but she knew full well that she could lose an arm.

Laura got it and looked down. Even as a ghost, there were tears on her cheeks.

“He died in ash,” she stated quietly. “He died in fire. All of him is gone.”

The only sound in the room was the sound of Stiles breathing hard, trying to keep it under control.

“Yes,” Allison said in a voice of steel. “He died, and the last bit of peace died with him.”

Stiles' huffing was dangerously loud, very close to a growl.

“It is complicated,” Lydia said. “Nobody in this room is to blame, but the two of you had a heavy hand in it. You two are the keys; you are the two sides of a coin. Laura is the moment, the central point where it all changed.”

“So I get to live?” Laura tried again, hoping for another answer.

Lydia shook her head. “You are the last thing that will be the same.”

Laura looked straight at her. “Derek?”

The chains holding Stiles rattled, and Lydia looked at him. She knew what Derek was like after Laura, how cold and stoic to hide the ache of the loss of family.

“He will be as he was,” Lydia said. “For whatever that is worth.”

“How do we know that it won’t end right here again?” Laura pushed.

Lydia put her arms out. “We don’t have anything left. I’m willing to put my magic, all of myself, on the line to channel this. I’m going to burn myself out and go back to high school and date Jackson and be a fucking normal girl, but I will do it, you know why, because I have hope that this dark world that we live in is the bottom, so what is the worst that happens? We end up here? Everyone is going to still be the same person, everyone is gong to want the same thing, but if I change one little fact, the outcome can be a whole lot different, and maybe, just maybe, we won’t be the last generation on the face of the earth.”

Everyone backed down. Stiles lifted his head and breathed in. “Yes.”

Allison nodded. “Yes.”

Laura shrugged. “I’m dead, but I realize that not everybody really would want to be.”

“I vote yes, too,” Scott said, raising his hand. “But I’m not a coin or a ghost, so I don’t think I count.”

Lydia turned to Scott with a dangerous half smile, and he took a hesitant step back. He had seen enough to know that this wasn’t a good thing.

“You think you have nothing to sacrifice?” she asked.

“No, Lydia,” Allison said, taking a step towards her.

Lydia clicked her tongue. “This isn’t yours to decide.”

Scott looked confused.

“Take me,” the Sheriff said.

Lydia looked at him. “You aren’t the sacrifice. Your role in this is periphery.”

Scott’s brow wrinkled. “I’m the sacrifice? Do I have to die?”

Lydia shook her head. “You have to be the change.”

Alison toyed with the latch on her crossbow. “Lydia, stop talking in riddles. For the love of fucking Christ, just tell us what will be different. You sound like fucking Deaton did.”

“Well, he taught me everything I know,” Lydia retorted.

“Take us through the steps,” Allison said through gritted teeth.

Lydia shrugged. “Well, that's almost no fun.”

Allison looked like she was going to lunge at Lydia. The Sheriff held her back.

“You might want to get on with it, Lydia,” the Sheriff said.

Lydia turned towards Stiles. He watched her openly, his amber eyes shining bright in the dark room, the red glint just under the surface.

“I brought Laura from the beyond,” Lydia told him. “Derek sealed you to him, to his pack. She’s here to take that back. Only a Hale can take that away from you, but you have to do it willingly.”

Stiles didn’t take his eyes from her.

“That is the first step,” she informed him. “That is the easy step.”

“Then we’re going to sit in a circle, the wolf, the hunter, and the spark,” Lydia said quietly. “Scott will be in the middle. Allison will give her strength, I will give my power, and you will give Scott your wolf.”

There was silence in the cavern. Lydia stepped forward. 

“Will you give it away?” she whispered. “Will you give up everything you have become if it means that the world might stand a chance?”

Stiles stared at her. He didn’t know anything besides the wolf anymore; he couldn’t fathom what he was without it. She was asking him something beyond his current understanding.

“Leave us,” Scott commanded in the small cavern, his voice echoing off of the stone surfaces.

“Scott,” Allison said coming up next to him. 

He looked over at her. Long ago, the puppy love had turned into duty, and for years, there had been hardness between them. Stiles watched them act in a character that wasn’t who he remembered. They weren’t the people that he had known; they were almost clinical in their approach.

“This is between me and him,” Scott said, his voice empty.

For a second, she softened, and she was the girl that Scott had fallen for. Stiles saw the people he remembered. The times before weren’t all terrible. The first few years were chaos. Stiles remembered high school. He remembered his crush on Lydia. He remembered him and Scott falling in love with different sides of the fight, before there even was a war.

But for a few short, beautiful years, Stiles had believed that it didn’t matter, that they didn’t have to join in. They were officially hunter and wolf, but they were also three high school kids and Derek, falling in love and free.

Stiles closed his eyes and heard everyone leave. He could hear Scott’s breathing. The years had made his asthma worse, and there was a wheezing in his lungs.

Scott stepped forward and unhooked Stiles from his constraints.

Stiles opened his eyes and fell to the ground. Scott came and sat cross-legged next to him. Stiles didn’t speak, just waited for Scott.

“I remember when you used to have a quip for everything,” Scott said quietly. “I remember when you used to be the one who would talk us into trouble and then talk us out.”

Stiles managed to get himself into a sitting position. He didn’t take his eyes off of Scott, but he still didn’t speak.

“I’ve missed you,” Scott said, looking down at his hands. “It’s my own fault. I felt like at some point, I had to choose. I never understood you, not like Derek did. I understood Chris and the hunters. I never went against you. I protected you, or at least, I tried. I wasn’t very good at it.”

Stiles was still.

Scott looked up at him. “You always knew the right things to say and do. I always felt like I was in over my head. You took to being a wolf like it was just part of you. Lydia wants to start over, to make me the wolf, and I can never do it like you did. You made it so easy.”

Stiles fidgeted, and Scott’s smile shone.

“I almost miss your ADHD,” Scott said. “There was almost something comforting in your hyperness.”

Stiles swallowed and flexed his fingers. The numbness was leaving. In just a few seconds, he would be able to move. He could have his hands around Scott’s throat. He could go out into the night.

Instead, he just looked at his hands. 

There was nothing out there, not anymore. There hadn’t been anything out there for him in a very long time. This world wasn’t a friend to anyone.

And it had been his fault. 

His rage and his loss was borne by every wolf, by every human.

“We can start over,” Scott said, with an earnestness that Stiles wanted to believe didn’t exist any more. If Scott could look so pure, so innocent in this light, after everything that had happened, then there was good in this world.

It had caught up to him. 

The truth of the matter.

He had burned the world. It couldn’t belong to him anymore.

Scott moved in fearlessly. “I won’t know how to be a wolf, but you did. I think even if you aren’t one, you will know. It was almost instinct for you, a puzzle for your brain to chew on. You can teach me, help me. I'll be the wolf, and you can make me human in the way that I couldn’t for you.”

Stiles felt it. He felt every inch of his human skin, he felt his human emotions, he felt the swell of loss.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles rasped thickly, trying to piece together the sounds.

He knew he was crying, he knew that Scott had thrown his arms around him, like they were still stupid children.

It was at that moment he knew. 

He wanted to be a stupid child again.

Scott pulled back. “Don’t be sorry, say yes.”

Stiles carefully formed the words. “Do-over.”

“So we’ll do this?” Scott said, reaching a hand out.

Packs slept in piles. After fights, they would burrow down in a safe area and huddle together for warmth and comfort. Stiles slept apart; he had for nearly a decade. He couldn’t. He had to be stronger, and he couldn’t find comfort in anything.

Penance for all of his destruction.

But Scott hugged him, carefree. As if Stiles hadn’t become a monster.

Stiles sat there for a minute and then started to fidget a bit. Scott let him go.

“We have a few hours until the full moon,” Scott said, looking resigned at the door. “We don’t have to tell them that you agreed right away.”

Stiles studied his once friend.

Scott swallowed and then took a deep breath. “It can’t be any worse, whatever the future is.”

Stiles put his hand on Scott’s arm. “With you.”

**

Two hours later, Scott opened the door, and everyone was on the other side. Allison was pacing. Lydia was sitting cross-legged on the floor. The Sheriff was leaning against a wall. Laura was hovering.

“I feel as if I should make a joke about dying of boredom,” Laura said

Scott bounced on his feet. “We were catching up.”

Lydia stood up and interrupted Allison who was getting ready to speak.

“He’s in?” Lydia asked.

Scott leveled her with a look. “Yes.”

Stiles came to the doorway, and Lydia and Allison took a step back. Stiles moved uncomfortably, wearing clothing that didn’t fit. He still looked at them as a predator.

The sheriff stepped forward, his eyes shining. “Stiles.”

Stiles felt his mouth turned upwards in a bad attempt at a smile.

“How have you been?” his father asked, voice breaking.

Stiles looked with panic at Scott. Scott reached out a hand and rested it on Stiles’s shoulder.

“I’m okay,” Stiles said, looking back at his father, continuing the farce.

The Sheriff’s face broke a little. 

“It’s okay, dad,” Stiles said slowly.

The Sheriff’s face crumpled.

“It will all be okay,” Scott jumped in.

The Sheriff ignored him and walked up to Stiles. “I haven’t heard you say that in a very long time. You’re still my son, and I love you.”

Stiles’s head tilted, and one of his hands went to the tattoo on his heart. Fingers traced over it absently, and then Stiles nodded.

“We have to go,” Lydia said quietly. “We have to get the spell started. Sheriff, you need to stay here.”

The Sheriff slumped a little, and he stepped away from Stiles. Everyone moved to follow Lydia back into the cavern, everyone except Stiles. Stiles stood there, still watching his father.

“Dad,” Stiles said, this time with no hesitation. “I’m sorry. I will make you proud, happy to be my father.”

With that, Stiles scurried away, not seeing the tears streaming down his father’s face. Scott gave the Sheriff’s shoulder a squeeze and followed everyone into the room.

It was time to make right where there was so much wrong.

Lydia moved them to the far side of the room, where there was a circle set up.

“Stiles, sit in the middle,” Lydia said, not looking at him.

Stiles moved towards the circle and sat down.

“Take off your shirt,” Lydia commanded, turning to look at Stiles.

Stiles made a face. “Waited so long you to say that.”

Lydia looked at him and blinked, and then she turned to Scott. “I’m sure that the return of his humor is your fault.”

Scott grinned and looked at Allison. She looked down, but there was a curve to her lip and a little touch of dimples.

“I feel like I would have liked you, Stiles Stilinski,” Laura said moving to the edge of the circle.

Stiles looked up at her, and his hand went to his tattoo again. He slowly spoke. “I love him.”

Laura knelt down so they were eye level. “I saw only a piece of this world, and it looks gutted, but I’ve gotta say, if this was because they hurt my brother, you have my eternal gratitude. What we’ve gone through…well, the fact that he found someone who would avenge it? That makes part of me glad that he had someone who loved him. I just wish that you two had found peace.”

Stiles looked at her and pressed his lips together, his forehead wrinkled. Finally, he looked down and spoke softly.

“Derek alive will make him happy,” Stiles said, and then he shook his head. That hadn’t come out like he wanted. 

Laura reached out a translucent hand and touched the symbol on Stiles’s heart. 

“You will be there,” Laura whispered. “If you find him once, you can find him again.”

Stiles gave her a look that plainly said that he didn’t believe it for a minute.

“You strike me as a force of nature, Stiles Stilinski,” Laura said. “If the world is like this because they took him away from you, I don’t doubt that you can do anything.”

Stiles shrugged.

“I’m sorry I won’t know you,” Laura said, voice cracking a little. 

Lydia cleared her throat. “We have to start now.”

Stiles nodded and ran his hand over the tattoo and then put his hands by his side. He sat up straight and nodded.

“I gave Laura the words,” Lydia said, lighting candle and incense. “Stiles, she’s going to touch you, and you have to let her. You have to look in her eyes and renounce the Hale brand on you.”

Stiles nodded.

Laura looked at him, tears shining like stars in the darkened cavern. Stiles reached for her, and his hand went through her cheek.

“Sorry you die,” Stiles said quietly.

“I’m sorry I’m going to take him away from you,” Laura whispered back.

Stiles tilted his head and thought about it for a minute.

“You aren’t,” Stiles said calmly. He looked at her steadily. “It’ll be different.”

Laura swallowed and placed her hand over the symbol on Stiles’ heart. Stiles lowered his head.

Laura began to murmur the words. The triskelion under her hand began to glow, hazy under the translucency. Stiles’s shoulders began to shake, and a growl escaped from his chest, raw and painful. Tears streamed down her cheeks like glitter, falling to the ground. The rest of the room was still, watching them.

“Blood of the Hale, blood of the wolf, blood of the moon,” Laura finished in English. “I call you back. I take you back. Will you give?”

Stiles looked up at her with pained eyes, and his voice came out like a sob. “Yours.”

The glowing rushed out of Stiles and into Laura, making her shine from the inside. She took a step back, and there was a tearing sound as she was ripped away. She took with her the glow, the power of the Hale Alpha.

Stiles remained with his head down, hands behind his back. He was gasping, and he had shifted, but he didn’t move. Every muscle in his bare shoulders was felt taut and tense, and his chest was shuddering with every breath that he took in.

Lydia stepped forward; Scott and Allison came up behind her.

“Allison, sit in the circle with Stiles,” Lydia said softly.

Allison knelt in front of Stiles.

“I need you to hold hands,” Lydia said.

Allison was looking at Stiles’s hands. For a second, she looked over at Scott, and her eyes were gleaming. She placed her hands on Stiles and leaned in. 

Allison whispered. “I do it for hope for something better.”

Stiles nodded.

“We don’t have much time,” Lydia said. “The moon is rising.”

Lydia held out a crystal for Scott to hold.

“You have to hold this under their hands,” Lydia said. She looked over at Laura, who was sitting up. Her hands were still glowing with the Hale power.

Scott moved. The three figures on the ground all bowed their heads. Lydia stood above them and placed both of her hands on Scott’s shoulders. She looked upwards at the moon that none of them could see.

“Close your eyes,” Lydia said softly. “This is going to get intense.”

She closed her eyes and began to speak. She had power; she had always had power, but as she spoke, that power materialized. It became visible, a bright white color, and moved through the darkened cavern. Everyone could feel the tendrils of power wrapping around them. 

From Stiles, the red of the Alpha began to emerge. From Allison, the blue of the hunter pulled from under her skin. It was massaged and embraced by the white of Lydia’s power. 

Lydia was gasping as she spoke. Stiles was growling, but he kept his eyes closed. Allison was sobbing a little, but she didn’t move.

Only Scott remained impassive, the crystal in his hands still bathed in darkness. He looked to be in a trance, at peace as the chaotic colors swirled around the area. Laura watched in wonderment, holding the Hale to her.

The Alpha red and the hunter blue merged around Scott in a royal shade of purple.

“The world as it is,” Lydia gasped. “The world as it was. Together to meet, together and change. One change, and they will be no more!”

The white curled into the purple, making a vibrant lavender.

Scott breathed in, and the lavender entered him, Suddenly, everything was focused on Scott, bright and vibrant. Even Laura had to shade her eyes as Scott glowed brighter than the sun.

“Again!” Lydia commanded.

And everything went blank.

**

Derek Hale drove into Beacon Hills in his rented Nissan. He had to find Laura.

Scott did push ups. He was going to make the team this year; he was going to be impressive.

Allison looked around her new bedroom, dread in her stomach. Tomorrow was the start of the rest of her life.

Stiles looked down at his homework. He was so bored. He listened to the scanner that his father had at home. Something had to be happening in this one horse town.

Laura stood at the front porch of the Hale house. She breathed in. She was perfectly corporeal and remembered everything, she remembered her death, the cavern, the glow and the four people who were trying to save the world.

But she was back and tonight was the last night of her life, and she wanted to run away.

Lydia sat in a white dress, cross-legged on the Hale porch. The sun was setting. Laura Hale walked to the house. 

“Are you the ghost of Christmas future?” Laura asked.

“Yes, you can tell by the manicure,” Lydia said, holding up her ragged hand.

“You're still alive?” Laura asked.

“I’m not alive, not anymore, not in this timeline,” Lydia said. “You weren’t far off—I’m a ghost. The Lydia of this timeline is probably in Jackson Wittemore’s Porsche.”

Laura touched her arm; instead of vapors catching on light, her hand encountered more skin. Lydia looked down at the hand on her arm.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Lydia told her. “I’m alive, I’m here. I have to make sure the moment changes. I’m the protectorate of the change. When that happens, I’m going to cease to be."

Laura didn’t move her hand. “I’m going to die again.”

Lydia pulled Laura down, and they sat side by side, shoulders brushing.

“Did it hurt?” Lydia asked.

“Being torn in two?” Laura said. “Nah, it’s peachy.”

Lydia reached out for Laura’s hand. They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Do they ever find out who did it?” Laura asked. “Do you know who kills me?”

Lydia thought a long moment, weighing the options.

“Yes,” Lydia said, offering no more.

Laura nodded. “Is there justice?”

Lydia tilted her head to the side and looked into the woods. “You are avenged. You were avenged in the other timeline.”

“Derek?” Laura said with a small smile.

“Yes,” Lydia said.

“He’s a good guy,” Laura said.

Lydia snorted. “He’s a pain in the ass after you die.”

“He was a pain in the ass before I died,” Laura replied. “But he’s my baby brother. He’s the only thing that the hunters didn’t burn from me.”

Her voice caught, and Lydia curled into her. They both knew that the fire had burned him anyway; the fire had claimed all the Hales eventually.

“Protect him?” Laura asked.

Lydia gave a long sigh. “Me now is not someone who would have anything to do with Derek. I could never control him; therefore, I don’t want anything to do with him. None of them remember, none of them ever will.”

Laura’s shoulders began to shake. “He isn’t going to have anything.”

“I think Stiles is always going to be his salvation,” Lydia said soothingly. “He’ll still have him.”

“Not like before,” Laura said. “They’re never going to find each other, and Derek is going to be all alone.”

Lydia shrugged. “He is going to be alive, and none of us know what will happen.”

“Not even you?” Laura asked.

Lydia cocked her head again.

“What do you know, Lydia?” Laura asked.

“Scott,” Lydia said. “He’s the only thing I’m sure of. When I gave him the power, when he was the channel, I saw something. It all clung to him. He’s sixteen, so he’ll probably have a time of it, but there is something about him. I think that he is going to be a True Alpha. He has it in him, and we gave him more.”

Laura looked up, startled. “I was hoping for more sureness about Derek.”

Lydia shrugged. “This isn’t about him anymore.”

Laura stood up and sighed. “This world is now about Scott?”

Lydia nodded. “Derek and Stiles as the center of the universe didn’t do the world much good.”

“Well, let’s enter into the world of the newest wolf,” Laura said. “Which way do I go to be eviscerated?”

Lydia pointed into the woods.

Laura sighed and walked forward. Lydia watched her as night fell. She heard the howl in the woods and the wind pick up.

Lydia closed her eyes and waited for the new world to begin.

She blinked out of existence.

**


End file.
